Loveless

*** Patty Loveless, The Trouble With the Truth (Epic): Patty Loveless seemed to be developing her musical instincts on 1995's When Fallen Angels Fly. Unfortunately, the follow-up, like her early albums, is marred by some inappropriate song selection and often overblown production.Loveless chose a great tune to open with, Richard Thompson's ''Tear-Stained Letter,'' which was a hit for Jo-El Sonnier some years ago. Loveless' strong, distinctive alto is richly deserving of a rowdy, Cajun-flavored number like this, but the studio band is too stiff.

She was left for dead in November. A calf muscle had been cut nearly to the bone. A bullet missed her heart by four inches. Her lung collapsed twice. But today, Christy Martin feels more alive than ever. Her husband Jim is in jail, arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Christy has moved to Las Vegas, free from the prison of a loveless marriage and the pressure of living a lie by hiding a love affair with a woman.

JAMES JACKSON LOVELESS JR., 62, Gilpin Way, Orlando, died Saturday, June 11. Mr. Loveless was an attorney for Giles and Robinson, PA. He was born in Orlando. A member of First United Methodist Church of Downtown Orlando, he also belonged to the American Bar Association, The Florida Bar Association, Orange County Bar Association and Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. He was an Air Force veteran. Survivors: wife, Beryl S.; daughters, Sandra L., Orlando, Debra Jean, Sidney, Neb. Baldwin-Fairchild Funeral Home, Orlando.

David Loveless' wife pulled him aside before he left the house one morning and gave him a talking-to. It was one of those "uh-oh" conversations that happen between husbands and wives. Moments later, the senior pastor of Discovery Church in Orlando was still thinking about what it means to have a partner who can straighten you out when things start to swerve off course. So, using his BlackBerry, he posted a "tweet" on social-networking site Twitter, recounting the lesson he just learned and asking his followers whether they had somebody like that in their lives.

Ever wonder why some country singers seem to soar to immediate stardom? Throughout her four-year struggle for recognition, Patty Loveless has often wondered the same thing.Loveless, 33, has developed a theory that goes beyond the usual one - that women tend to like male singers and do a lot more record-shopping than men.Loveless thinks it may be related to romance.''I've done some shows with Clint (Black) and with George Strait,'' she said, ''and from standing back and watching the women when those guys walk out onstage, I think women have a tendency, just for that moment, to kind of fall in love.

Patty Loveless says that current country music is revising its sexist stances.''For the longest time, a lot of us female artists have been struggling and battling for the airwaves with our male peers, and our complaint has been that there are more male artists being played than female,'' Loveless said.''But now it's beginning to change, I feel. I think eventually there's going to be a real balance on the radio - as many females as males being played. I think (the imbalances in) records sales are going to come around, too.''One of the things Loveless dislikes about the increasing female population on the national country scene is the intense competition.

Patty Loveless' musical traditionalism goes back not just to her childhood in an authentic Kentucky hollow but also to music that appealed to the kind of people who lived in such places.She recalls when she was 5 and went to a drive-in movie in Pikeville with her father. Between the two films that were playing that evening, she saw a life-changing show by bluegrass masters Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.''There was something about the music that just reached down inside me and spoke to me about things I felt that I couldn't even explain,'' she says.

Coming behind such previous No. 1 hits as ''Blame It on Your Heart,'' ''Here I Am'' and ''How Can I Help You Say Goodbye?,'' Patty Loveless' fast-rising current single, ''You Don't Even Know Who I Am,'' seems to be making a powerful impression.Loveless describes the song, an objective look at a woman and a man whose long-term relationship is falling apart, as having to do with ''the reality of people. So many people can relate to that, and I was put in that position (myself).''Loveless, who is divorced, said, ''It got to the point where I didn't know him anymore, and he didn't know me. Even though I didn't have kids, I know that (kind of)

Country singer Vince Gill will share the stage with fellow country hitmaker Patty Loveless at the Orlando Arena at 8 p.m. March 11.Gill, winner of a truckload of Grammys and Country Music Association awards, started off 1995 by walking away with an American Music Award Monday for his ''Whenever You Come Around'' single. Loveless is stealing a bit of the spotlight herself with her ''Here I Am'' single, No. 10 on Billboard magazine's country chart. Tickets go on sale Saturday for $25.Another upcoming double bill going on sale Saturday will feature the return of Billy Joel and Elton John to Florida.

The nation's economic fallout has hit both the sacred and secular worlds of Central Florida. Many local churches now are struggling with the same money issues that confront businesses: budget crises, salary reductions and staff layoffs. "We're facing what our members are facing in their companies and at work," said the Rev. David Loveless, pastor of Discovery Church in Orlando. Its four campuses serve about 4,000 members. "We've probably cut $700,000 out of the budget this year," Loveless said.

I'll start by saying I am not a Bobby Bowden fan. That "Golly-Gee Whiz" stuff doesn't fool or impress me a bit. . . . I am, however, a great fan of Joe Paterno. Joe's credo is, "If you want to be a student-athlete, first you'll be a student . . . then you'll be an athlete." As you stated, Penn State had a rough stretch a couple of years ago. "Joe must go" was the hue and cry all over the Happy Valley area. But, "Golly-Gee Whiz," a year later the Lions had a stellar season . . . I'll say to you and all the nay-sayers what I said to those up north.

The last bit of good news vanished from Orlando's gloomy home market last month, when the median price of the houses and condos sold by local Realtors fell from a year earlier for the first time in more than five years. The median price in the core Orlando market dipped 3.1 percent compared with April 2006. It was the first year-over-year decline since the 1.9 percent decrease in February 2002, and the biggest drop since a 4.6 percent slump in 1999. Meanwhile, existing-home sales by Orlando Regional Realtor Association members were down more than 40 percent from a year ago, the inventory of homes listed hit a new high of 24,435, and the average time it took to sell a home soared to 98 days.

Web sites can sing Kate Winslet's praises, gushing at ForeverKate.com, members. tripod.com/sexywinslet/ and their kin about her talent, her looks, her principles. People can slap her on its "50 Most Beautiful People" list without a second thought. But Kate, that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the woman who made Leonardo DiCaprio sexy in Titanic, is still "the ugly duckling at the school prom who didn't get asked to dance by the cutest boy in the school and probably had the wrong shoes on," she says.

A DeLand man was arrested early Monday morning after beating one woman on the head with a hammer and choking another, officials said. Michael Loveless, 32, hit and choked a woman he knew about 1 a.m. at a convenience store on South Spring Garden Avenue and then drove away in her car, dragging her across the pavement for a short distance, a Volusia County Sheriff's Office report said. Less than an hour later, deputies arrived at the man's home on Talton Avenue and found him beating a second woman, 31, with a 5-pound hammer.

Big & Rich made big dumb country-rap popular, now Dallas rapper Cowboy Troy wants to get in on the action. His debut album is the first release on Raybaw Records, a Warner Bros. imprint operated by Big & Rich's Muzik Mafia. The rhymes are clumsy and obvious, and the concept of merging mainstream country and G-rated rap sounds like an idea straight out of the marketing department. The opening "I Play Chicken With the Train'' borrows wholesale from the Big & Rich playbook: driving drums and rock guitars flavored with enough fiddle and banjo threaded into the background to claim country credibility.

As a movie hero, one of your tougher sales is a smug, privileged adolescent whose goal in life is having himself kicked out of prep schools. That would be Igby Slocumb, the hero, if that is the word, of Igby Goes Down, a patience-trying, pseudo-Salinger coming-of-ager. Although not without intelligence and even wit, the film makes a fatal mistake: It asks us to care about a young man whose only apparent virtue is that he is not quite as unpleasant as some of the people in his life. By that sort of logic, Mullah Omar could almost be a hero.

If there was a moment that summed up the fury, fire and heart of Lucinda Williams' music, this was it. Playing before a typically sold-out crowd at a club in Louisville, Ky., two winters ago, Williams and her band locked into the furious, mantralike chorus of "Joy." But don't let the title fool you. This was a song of retribution -- payback time for the busted-hearted. "You took my joy," she sang. "I want it back." Over and over, the verse went -- a curled-lip confession every bit as urgent and poetic as the bluesier, rootsier and folk-fortified material that has made Williams an unexpected star with mainstream audiences and a songwriter nearly without equal among her peers.